


Dear Robert...

by Cards_Slash



Series: Second Verse [6]
Category: Wynonna Earp (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:07:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23129014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cards_Slash/pseuds/Cards_Slash
Summary: Now that the secret is out, it's time to deal with the consequences.or,“Wyatt didn’t kill any outlaws named Robert,” Waverly said. She wasn’t looking at Doc because she was still pretending he didn’t exist. She didn’t have to look at him because Dolls and Wynonna were. “At least, not that I can find. Since we know that sometimes people were killed that weren’t outlaws,” that also was meant as a dig at him and his involvement with the barber’s watery death, “we can look at anyone named Robert but it’s a common name.”“That sounds like a you job,” Wynonna said.“Me?” Doc repeated, “I was not aware that he had a name other than Bobo until yesterday.”Waverly made a noise like she wanted to slap him, but Dolls managed the fakest look of sincerity, “I’m sure you can figure out a way to coax it out of him.”“Yeah,” Wynonna said with far too much enthusiasm, “I’m sure you can just ask him.”“Fine,” Doc said, “is there anything else I should inquire about while I am coaxing?”
Relationships: Doc Holliday/Bobo Del Rey | Robert Svane
Series: Second Verse [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1632727
Comments: 2
Kudos: 19





	Dear Robert...

Henry had said, “you have had ample opportunity to inform me of your intentions to purchase this particular establishment. I am beginning to think that you have limited or no experience in dealing with young women.”

That was an awful lot of words to say, _Wynonna won’t like this_. Bobo had been banking on Wynonna not being happy when he’d made the decision to do it. What he hadn’t been concerned about, at that time, was what John Henry Holliday was going to think of it. He certainly had been thinking there was a future where Henry made promises about turning around a hundred and thirty years of Earp vs. Revenant feuding. 

Bobo was willing to admit that the bar had been a short-sighted but _much needed_ act of pettiness, as much to annoy the fuck out of Wynonna as it was to spit on Wyatt’s grave. He’d _enjoyed_ snapping that supid plaque on the wall into pieces. (DRANK WHERE WYATT DRANK.) More men worth more than Wyatt had drank at this bar.

“I have faith you’ll make it work,” was how Bobo had answered Henry. 

That had been enough for both of them, all the conversation that needed having. Something must have _happened_ because there was no pretense required before Henry kissed him. Up the stairs from a bar stacked to the ceiling with revenants, not even safe behind a closed door, Henry had kissed him like he hadn’t gotten enough the night before. 

There hadn’t been enough hours between then and now to let a man get as hungry as Henry was. Bobo was struggling to find some reason not to but all he found was a list of reasons that he could.

Reasons like, the sharp sound of his zipper being yanked down. The licked-damp press of Henry’s eager hand on his dick. The way Henry groaned when he was pushed against a wall. That look on his pink-cheeked face, full of giddiness and lust, with his tongue curled into the edge of his mouth. Henry was on his way to his knees when the reverberating sound of the bar doors getting kicked up knocked its way up the stairs. 

“Where is he!” sounded very much like pretty-little-Waverly’s pissed-off angel voice. “Where is Bobo!”

Henry was back on his feet in an instant, throwing himself to the left like he could get anymore hidden at the top of the stairs. His eyes got so wide when he was scared that it seemed like they’d roll right out of his skull. He scrubbed his palm (hastily pulled free from Bobo’s pants) against his thigh as he hissed, “shit.”

“Ow!” Waverly shouted in the next moment.

“Ow is code for let her go, asshole.” Wynonna sounded like she was brandishing a weapon she wasn’t nearly fast enough to use effectively. 

Bobo pressed his forehead against the wall where Henry had so recently been. The longer he waited to show, the stupider the whole situation was going to get. He could almost _see_ them pulling their own guns, rising out of their chairs, gathering up a group intelligence only capable of one stupid thought: make the worst of a bad situation. “Do you want to go, or should I?” Bobo asked.

“They do not know that I am here,” Henry hissed at him.

They almost certainly did, but if they were all pretending otherwise. Bobo fixed his jeans with a flinch and tugged his coat so it was sitting right on his shoulders. He didn’t have to exert any special effort to make his voice menacing because there were few things as annoying as being interrupted. “A bloodbath is bad for business,” he said as he made his way down the stairs. “Show these fine women some hospitality.”

Wynonna wasn’t crying anymore. She was furious, ever so slightly hungover, and more than _willing_ to shoot him in the middle of a bar full of men that would shoot her back. But she wasn’t the _primary_ problem, because Waverly was a few steps ahead of her, looking at him the way you reserved for rapists and baby-killers. 

“You stole Gus’ bar,” Waverly said because it must have been easier than saying ‘you fucked our friend’. 

“No,” he was walking up the conveniently created aisle between the men with guns on barstools and the men standing at the tables with _more_ guns. “I paid what she asked for it.”

“She didn’t know it was you!” Waverly shouted, “she wouldn’t have if she had known it was you.”

Well, they could debate that fact until one of them died. They could even pretend like they were talking about a bar or the woman that had sold it. Fact was, Henry didn’t seem very unwilling or confused about Bobo’s identity when he’d been sinking to his knees five minutes ago. 

Bobo rolled his eyes, “you still have a job.”

“I would never work for you.”

“I hear the pay’s not that good,” Wynonna said. 

Bobo was going to _need_ Henry to tell him whatever he’d said to Wynonna. It was like trying to operate a machine but all the instructions were in a language you didn’t speak. Neither one of the Earp sisters seemed to be able to _say_ what they were pissed about, and why did you need to when you could just threaten to send someone to hell? 

He lifted his shoulders in a slow shrug, let a lazy sort of smile settle on his face, “some jobs are their own reward.”

Wynonna scoffed like she was going to vomit. “Come on, Waverly.”

Waverly was a curled-lip of disgust, but she darted forward to wrap her hands around the ugly tip jar shaped like a cowboy boot. “These things are ours,” she said in a rush. 

Jock, behind the bar, grabbed the jar out of her hands and Wynonna pulled her back and toward the door. Every revenant in the place was itching to follow her, still pointing every gun in the building everywhere Wynonna went. 

“Bye,” Bobo said. As soon as Wynonna was on the other side of the door, the bar relaxed in snickers and jeers. They were all laughing at their own success like they’d done anything at all.

\--

Wynonna had not _asked_ him to join her at BBD headquarters before she left the homestead that morning, but she had made a point to check and see if he was still in her barn. While she was there she had made sure to mention that there would be a _strategy_ meeting to discuss what should be done next.

Doc was adept enough at reading between the lines that he was able to _divine_ the true meaning of her ambiguous statements. Wynonna had been saying: _meet me at the police station or I’ll know for sure that you have switched sides to join the devil himself and I will add you to my shoot-to-kill list_. So, Doc perched himself outside of the police station to wait for her. Of course, he had not intended to be half-covered in dust from an unfortunate landing caused by climbing out of a window but some plans never quite worked out. 

Waverly did not so much as look at him; she didn’t even offer him a flicker of acknowledgement as she swept past him and into the police station. Wynonna slowed several steps back, came to a stop as she looked him over and then she just sighed.

“Come on,” she said, “Dolls is going to _love_ this.”

“Oh I am sure he will be full of _colorful_ remarks.”

As far as Doc was concerned, the real shortcoming with modern times was the limitations they placed on a man’s right to smoke. His hands were itching for something to do with themselves as he followed Wynonna to BBD headquarters. Even just holding a cigarillo would have improved his mood. 

“Find him on a street corner?” Dolls asked as soon as Doc stepped into a room.

“I think he’s working out of a bar now,” Waverly said. She was already in front of a computer, typing away to achieve something.

“Guys,” Wynonna said, “we _agreed_ to give Doc a chance. And it’s not working when you’re not getting paid.” She flipped open the box of doughnuts left sitting at the edge of a desk. 

“So it’s like a whore internship?” Dolls asked.

“We’re up,” Waverly said, “we can hear everything from the bar.”

Wynonna had a whole mouthful of doughnut stuck in her mouth, but she managed to say, “did we really need a bug for that? I mean Doc’s got an all-access pass to revenant radio. I’m sure Bobo’s got the _best_ pillowtalk.”

“If you are _finished_.”

“Not at all,” Dolls said. But he _was_ smiling and that (at least) was better than his more dour expressions. The meanness he got to expend with his petty comments must have meant that he didn’t have to slap a man across the face again. If Doc had to choose, he’d rather have snickering childish comments than a hand across the face. 

“I got one more,” Wynonna said. “Last one, I’ve got to know. Does he wear that ugly ass coat while you’re fucking?”

Doc was having such happy daydreams of shooting them all in the knees. Anyone could survive a bullet to the knee. It wasn’t a _good_ feeling but it was far from fatal. “A gentleman does not kiss and tell.”

“So,” Dolls said before they could fall back into some sort of argument about what constituted an enemy. “Since you killed the witch before we could gather any useful intel, we’re going to have to start with what little we know. There’s someone named Lou.”

“The witch was scared of Lou,” Wynonna said. “Whoever, _whatever_ that was? If it’s enough to make the Stone Witch afraid? We need to know more.”

“Wyatt didn’t kill any outlaws named Robert,” Waverly said. She wasn’t looking at Doc because she was still pretending he didn’t exist. She didn’t have to look at him because Dolls and Wynonna were. “At least, not that I can find. Since we know that sometimes people were killed that weren’t outlaws,” that also was meant as a dig at him and his involvement with the barber’s watery death, “we can look at _anyone_ named Robert but it’s a common name.”

“That sounds like a you job,” Wynonna said.

“Me?” Doc repeated, “I was not aware that he had a name other than Bobo until yesterday.”

Waverly made a noise like she wanted to slap him, but Dolls managed the fakest look of sincerity, “I’m sure you can figure out a way to _coax_ it out of him.”

“Yeah,” Wynonna said with far too much enthusiasm, “I’m sure you can just _ask_ him.”

“Fine,” Doc said, “is there anything else I should inquire about while I am _coaxing_?”

Yes. There were a hundred little questions that Wynonna wanted to ask and none of them that she was willing to trust him with. So she shook her head and Dolls moved onto the next topic that needed discussing.

\--

“Turn this _off_.” Henry had no idea how vehicles were meant to work and even less about the various knobs and dials that operated things like the radio and air conditioning. Even at his best, undistracted by anything, all his efforts would have been guesses. Just now, he was just slapping the console with his sweat-covered fingers, searching for whatever switch, dial or knob was going to make the steady fog of _heat_ stop. 

It seemed like a good idea, when the cold was seeping through the old joints and cracks in the truck. Everything in the cab had been _cold_ from the seats to the door handles to the steering wheel itself. The windows had been almost _frosted_ then; they were covered in muggy white fog now, dripping long fat streaks like fresh-falling rain. 

Henry was restless around him, worming out of his shirts to drop them to the side. His back was long-and-shimmering, bent forward toward the dash. His hair was dripping wet, his every breath a fresh hot breeze. 

He’d turned on the radio and the hazard lights, and changed the station to some bible channel before he gave up. He folded forward with both his slippery hands along the cracked vinyl of the dash. His legs were _quivering_ spread open around Bobo’s lap as he finally went still. He was clenching around Bobo’s dick, making a long sound caught up between dying and being too tired to try anymore. “New rule,” he said with his forehead pushed against his own bent arm. Even his voice sounded like it was being roasted alive, “no fucking without a bed.”

Bobo ran his hand down Henry’s bent back. “I thought you wanted me to fuck you from behind.”

Henry groaned because he was _embarrassed_ for them both. 

Bobo twisted the dial to turn the heat off and it did _nothing_ at all to improve the situation. He’d been smart enough to take his coat off before they started or they might _really_ have caught on fire. “Lean back.”

“I _can’t_ ,” Henry said. 

Bobo growled. He couldn’t slouch any farther in the seat without embedding his knees into the dash. He could barely move at _all_ , and every time he _did_ , it made the suspension on the truck start screaming in alarm. Henry was going to _have_ to move or neither of them were going anywhere. “Come on,” he said again, with his hands on Henry’s arms to pull him back. 

“This is _worse_ ,” Henry said. He had one arm over the back of the seat to keep from falling and the other pushing reaching out looking for something to grab onto. The closest he managed to a decent handhold was the steering wheel and that just made the wheels lurch to one side with a shudder. 

Bobo pressed one hand to Henry’s flat belly and wrapped the other around his cock. This was far from the _best_ attempt at sex they’d managed but it wasn’t entirely without some important highlights. They didn’t have the room to manage anything athletic but Henry was a work of art in motion, always caught up in feeling _good_. Even now, as exhausted and sweat-soaked as he was, even with his head falling back with a groan of defeat, he was chasing after what felt good. He was rocking his hips by fractions, moving with Bobo’s hand, and sliding along his dick.

Henry was greedy about feeling good, but he made it worth your time to get him there. It overwhelmed him in the moment, and there was nothing more powerful than knowing it was your hands that had managed it. He was slow as cold syrup in the aftermath, with jelly limbs and a loose smile, always rolling into Bobo’s body like he’d just discovered it. 

(And that must have been the thing that Wyatt couldn’t replace. The thing he’d gone looking for when he stopped being mad. Because it was addictive as a fucking drug, being kissed with such gratitude.)

There was so much sweat on Henry’s face it was in his eyelashes, but he was still smiling as he took over the task of sliding across Bobo’s lap. Now that he’d had his orgasm, he was willing to put renewed effort in. “Just in case they ask,” he said all breathless and low, “I worked real hard at coaxing your name out of you.”

Bobo would have told him in another minute; he would have drawn him maps and diagrams, explained the whole fucking history of Purgatory to him but--

\--

Doc was not presently allowed in the house. Nobody had specifically told him that he was unwanted, but Waverly’s continued, purposeful ignorance of his existence and her newfound hobby of having a gun within reaching distance did a remarkably effective job at conveying her feelings toward him.

Since he was not allowed in, and he felt it was unwise to knock, he simply resorted to taking his time about smoking on the porch until Wynonna got tired of the smell. She opened the door with a bottle of liquor and an extra glass, wearing her pajamas and a coat she hadn’t bothered to zip. It wasn’t fully dark yet, but close enough that the cold had a bite to it that would tear straight through the thin flannel of her baggy pants.

She didn’t say anything to him, just sank into the chair opposite the door and unscrew the lid of the liquor. It smelled brown and warm, like exactly the sort of thing to really top off the day he’d had. Most of his body was still settling back into itself and a drink would have complimented the smoke he’d been having. 

“I don’t know if I can be okay with this, Doc,” Wynonna said. She tipped the bottle up to fill her mouth. The glass she’d brought out was resting in her lap with no indication she was going to get around to sharing. Her voice was a rasp, “you don’t know what he’s done to my family.”

“Well, no offense darling but neither do you.” The cigarillo was just about burnt down beyond use so he flicked it over the railing and out into the snow. 

Wynonna sneered at that. “Is the dick just like _so good_ that you’ve forgotten all the things? He sent the seven. All the revenants work for him, that means every single one of those bastards that have been trying to kill me since I got back have been working for him.”

“I do not know all of the details of Bobo’s _vast_ empire but I do know that while a number of revenants defer to his leadership out of fear, there are more than enough that do _not_.” He pointed at the glass in her lap, “did you mean to share that whiskey?”

“Not yet,” Wynonna took another drink. She flopped back in her seat and pressed her slippers against the railing. “If he didn’t want Willa dead, if he _needed_ her alive, what did he need her for?”

“I do not know.”

She snorted, “you don’t know a lot about the man you’ve been fucking.”

“I do not recall you asking me any significant number of personal questions prior to our moment.” 

Wynonna frowned at him with the neck of the bottle pushed up against her lip. She took another drink before she picked up the glass and filled it half way. “So, what’s his name?”

Bobo was not going to share his name. There must have been one hell of a secret wrapped up in that name. He hadn’t done more than snarl at the very idea of sharing it. Doc was willing to be forgiving when the orgasms were good, but it did leave him somewhat empty handed when it came to earning trust. “He would not say,” Doc said, “but he did indicate that you should look in your barn if you are so interested in knowing.”

“You’re in my barn,” Wynonna said. She handed the glass over. “All my life, I’ve _always_ known there was someone out there, someone that was…pulling the strings. I wasn’t meant to be the heir, but I remember Daddy telling Willa. Revenants are demons from hell and they had to die. We _have_ to kill them to break this curse. _Bobo_ is the revenant that’s been pulling the strings.”

“Well,” Doc was watching her staring at her own hands, watching how she didn’t want to look at him or anything else. “Maybe they want to break the curse too and you are just working against one another.”

“They’re _demons_.”

“Fish was a demon. You did not want to shoot him. Hell, Wynonna, this curse has been going on so long that none of you remember how it got started. You had to ask a _witch_ who could have been lying to you. I was not in the proper health to accompany Wyatt on this particular mission, so I cannot be of any assistance to you but you were there as was I and we both heard the witch.”

Wynonna didn’t want to know, though. She didn’t want to have to question the things she’d always been told. Nobody ever wanted to have to admit that maybe they’d been wrong; that maybe there was a better way at getting things done. Hatred and vengeance like that was _hard_ to let go of. “Bobo’s not going to tell me anything. I don’t think I’d even believe him if he did. Waverly thinks--” She grimaced at the very thought of what she meant to say, “she thinks that if we know who Bobo _was_ that we might be able to figure out what he knows without having to ask him.”

That was an exceptionally stupid plan. Doc shrugged, “might be.”

\--

Bobo didn’t _regret_ sending Bethany away. Her life could only stand to improve no matter where she went from the RV park, but he was just selfish enough to wish she hadn’t left. Humans were better at human errands, things like buying food and clothes and cigarettes. Most revenants emerged from hell like he’d left their taste buds behind. Some of them were as feral as animals and he couldn’t blame them for it, but that left them as shitty decision makers.

Point was, if he didn’t find the right man to send for cigarettes soon he was going to end up having to get them himself. Because he couldn’t suffer through the uniquely terrible taste of this particular brand any more than he could stomach the last ones. Bethany’s were shitty but he’d gotten used to them (at least). 

He hadn’t heard the car pull up, but he _did_ hear the sound of the shotgun cocking just around the corner. The thing was, he had _not_ been lying when he told Waverly that she was full of anger neither of them knew the extent of yet. She wasn’t weak by any standard of measurement, but she was the only person that could make cocking a shotgun sound like an apology. Bobo tossed his half-finished, shitty cigarette onto the ground as he turned his head to look at Miss Waverly Earp leveling a gun at his chest. He reached a hand out to tip the barrel up so it was pointed at his face properly, “heads take longer to grow back.”

“This is a funny place to meet for a quickie,” Waverly said.

As fun as fucking in abandoned buildings could be, Henry had specified he wanted a _bed_. Bobo was just old fashioned enough to enjoy being able to stretch out himself without worry of splinters and frostbite. “Can I have the phone back?” If only so he could find some method of attaching it to Henry’s body so he’d stop losing it to the Earp girls.

“No,” Waverly said. She might have been telling herself because her arm flinched like she was going to pull it out of her pocket. “I’ve looked up every Robert in Purgatory while Wyatt was here. So I guess,” she was walking in a circle, putting no more space between them but giving herself the advantage of the best shot, “the question is whether you’re an accountant, a farmhand or a blacksmith.”

Bobo shrugged. He was leaning back against the building, pushing his heel into the ground so he could cross them without slipping. “Why don’t we have a little talk about what’s really bothering you?”

“You kidnapped my sister,” Waverly said, “you _used_ me.”

History was written by the victors, so they said. Bobo had been on the winning side of every major event in the long history of the Earp curse and he’d still never managed to feature correctly in the narrative. “Yes, your sister, no kidnapping. You can’t kidnap someone when you’ve got permission to take them.”

Waverly was going to shoot him. There was none of that implied threat like there was with Wynonna. Waverly was _going_ to shoot him. “Nobody gave you permission to take our sister.”

“ _Ward_ did,” he countered. “Now, as delightful as this conversation has been, _you_ were not the person that I was expecting.” The person he’d thought would show up was probably back at the homestead, happily stupid to the fact that he’d lost his phone again. 

“Why’d you do it?”

Bobo was halfway to rolling off the wall, all set to walk back to his truck and _leave_. Even if Waverly did decide she was going to shoot him, the worst it would do was stain his coat. (And it hurt; you couldn’t go around practicing how you were going to die without it _hurting_.) “Waverly, _sweetheart_ , I just told you that that I was given permission.”

“Nobody gave you permission to use Doc.” 

Maybe it was a smell that Henry gave off, some sort of sad-and-lonesome puppy dog scent that made women forget who they were dealing with. Hell, made anyone forget. There were only two settings when you were dealing with a man like Henry. Either you loved him or you hated him, there was no room for in-betweens. Waverly didn’t look like the sort of woman that Henry would give the time of day and that didn’t matter one damn bit, because she’d gotten caught up in the misconception that he needed someone defending him. “As I recall,” he spun on his feet so he was looking at her again, “ _he_ gave me permission. Yes means _yes_ , even in hell.”

“I’ve seen them,” Waverly said oh-so-quietly over the gun still pointed at his body. “Your revenant _pals_ , the ones you’re supposed to be controlling? I’ve seen them watch him. I’ve seen how they look at him. I know what it means when a man looks at you like that, every woman alive knows what that means.”

Bobo was _growling_ and Waverly didn’t look worried at all.

“You should tell me your name, Bobo.”

“How would that benefit _me_?” Bobo asked. 

“Maybe it wouldn’t,” Waverly conceded, “but if we all want the same thing, we have to be able to trust one another.”

Whatever the thing they all wanted was, Bobo still had a gun pointed at his body. He scoffed at her, “ask your sister about the deal Ward made.” He started walking away, feeling how the gun barrel followed him at every step. “Give Henry back his phone.”

\--

“I’m in the barn,” Wynonna said (again). She was standing in the center of the barn. Her head was slightly tipped back and her arms were spread out as if she anticipated the answers dropping on her from above. “I am _in_ the barn.”

Doc was also in the barn, although he was of the opinion that he was only still at the homestead because his phone had gone missing. There may have been a slight blessing ringed around that realization. A sort of silver lining to having his belongings purposefully misplaced. While Doc was not complaining at all about the general increase in both the quality and frequency of sex in his life, he also did not want to find himself stupidly agreeing to undressed acrobatics either. 

“That’s all he said?” Wynonna asked (again). “Look in the barn,” she waved her fingers as she made the words wavy. “Oooooo. Has Bobo ever even been in our barn? Did he hide something on you? Am I supposed to look at you?”

This obligated Doc to (once again) say: “As I do not know what Bobo Del Rey’s name was prior being sent to hell, I can _not_ be the thing in this barn which you are meant to find. While I agree that it would have been easier if Bobo had simply shared those details, I do believe there is something here we are overlooking.”

“ _Has_ Bobo ever been in our barn?” Wynonna repeated. She wasn’t looking at him precisely, but in the direction of where he was standing. The longer she looked the less she seemed to be _seeing_. The annoyance which had made her beautiful face a mask of belligerence went soft. She was standing there with her hand half lifted like she was trying to point at something. “Willa,” she whispered (very quietly), and then very quickly. “ _No_.”

The barn door slapped open behind them, and Waverly stormed in without so much as a bit of worry about how both Doc and Wynonna had started to draw their weapons. She was gripping a shotgun in one hand as she shoved Doc’s phone into his chest. “Your pimp wants you to have this.”

“My pimp?” Doc repeated.

“Waves,” Wynonna said. All that gathering realization that had been building on her face was gone in an instant. She had her hands on Waverly’s arms to guide her into standing still in the sunniest part of the barn. “What happened? Did you go see Bobo? _Waves_.” 

“I did, it doesn’t matter. I don’t want to talk about it.” But what she did want to do was look over at Doc from the safety of her sister’s arms. She wanted to glare at him one last time, to _really_ look at him like she’d always known he was a liar and a bad man. (In his defense, he had not actually said he wasn’t.) “You don’t know any Roberts that Wyatt knew?”

“I was his friend not his personal secretary.”

“Robert an accountant? Robert a blacksmith? Robert a farmhand?”

“As I have said, many times, I do not have any memory of who Bobo may have been prior to the effects of the curse.”

“I thought Wyatt told you everything,” Waverly said. It was just like she sounded back in that bar, when she was full of tears and misconceptions, saying that he was meant to be some dead man’s friend. Like his friendship with Wyatt meant he owed it to her to be a better person. “I thought you were _best_ friends. I thought you were _important_.”

“There’s more to being _important_ than knowing every little detail of man’s life!” he shouted back, “and if you expect that I would be able to recall the name of every man that Wyatt met, you obviously do not have a proper notion of the sort of man your great-great-grandpappy really was!”

“Alright, alright, we should just calm down,” Wynonna said. “Everyone just needs to calm down. There’s only three Roberts? So we just pick one? Send Doc back with a name? If it’s the right name…”

That was a perfectly good plan as long as nobody wanted to successfully accomplish anything. Doc dropped his phone back into his pocket (not that he had any reason to suspect it would stay there) and pulled out his matches. “As much as I have enjoyed your childish opinions on my sex life, I am afraid I must insist that you stop assuming I have any special power over the persons I choose to take to my bed.”

Wynonna sneered at him.

“You were sleeping with Wyatt,” Waverly said, like she’d known it all along. It was a funny thing to say to a man when you were wrapped up in your big sister’s arms. She looked about as big as a child, cuddled up to her mother’s bosom. But she _knew_ (or thought she did).

Doc pulled the cigarillo out of his mouth before he even had the chance to light it. “I never said that I did not.”

“You had _sex_ with Wyatt?” Wynonna pulled away from Waverly with a lurch. She was back to standing in the middle of the room with her mouth hanging open. “Is there _anyone_ you have _not_ fucked?”

In fact there were many people. “Dolls comes to mind, although he does seem to have a special interest in my sexual prowess that is hard to overlook when we are working together in close quarters.”

“Are you serious?” Wynonna demanded.

“This line of inquiry will not lead us to discovering Bobo’s name. He said that the answers were in the barn.”

Waverly snorted, “he told me that Ward made a deal with him for Willa.” She looked over at Wynonna, like she expected it to be the most outrageous thing that she’d ever been told. “He said to ask you about it.”

“Willa,” Wynonna repeated. One of her hands was half way to pushing against her temple. “I was remembering, I thought I was remembering, but it doesn’t make any sense? But I think Willa and I were hiding in the bar and Daddy was talking to… It had to have been Bobo.”

“Bobo was in the barn?” Waverly said. “Our barn? This barn? Talking to Daddy?”

“There was a letter. I had to hide the letter.” Wynonna was looking up now, just like she’d been at the start, but with more _focus_. This wasn’t just waiting for something to shake loose, but the renewed certainty of something just remembered. She dragged an old box over to a broken plank in the ceiling and climbed on top of it to feel around. “Oh shit,” she whistled as she pulled down a dusty envelope. 

Waverly plucked it out of her grasp and pushed the shotgun into her still-open hands. “What was Daddy talking to Bobo about?”

Wynonna hadn’t recovered from finding the letter; she seemed confused about how she came to be holding a gun. “I don’t remember, I barely remember anything. I just...he was here and he was drinking.”

“That’s a shock.” Waverly pulled the papers out of the envelope and flattened them out in her hands. “Dear Robert,” she said and skimmed through the lines, whispering words to herself as she went. She’d flipped to the second page before her mouth dropped open. “This is from _Wyatt_.”

“Oh, so Doc’s fucking him and he’s writing _really_ long letters to Bobo. Who doesn’t love a love triangle?” Wynonna leaned in against Waverly’s shoulder, “what’s dear Robert’s last name?”

Doc had moved closer without any expectation that he would be allowed to look at the letter. He was willing to point out that since he had actually received a letter from Wyatt (many of them) that he might be uniquely qualified to decipher some hidden meaning contained therein.

“Am I crazy,” Wynonna started, “or is this an apology?”

“It’s not a very good one.” (Wyatt was not known for his humility.) “But I _don’t_ think you’re crazy.” Waverly even passed the first page of the letter over so Doc could get a proper look at it. 

He would have recognized that handwriting if he had lived to a thousand. Some things just got seared into your body through repeated exposure. Wyatt had a way of conveying his every unspoken thought through the slant of his writing. Whatever secrets he was keeping usually got told whether he wanted them to or not. 

“So,” Wynonna said, “Wyatt _apologized_ to Bobo?”

“It doesn’t say _why_ ,” Waverly said. She flipped the second page of the letter over twice before she’d satisfied herself that it didn’t have any hidden words. “It just says ‘an error in judgment’.”

Well now, everyone of this modern age full of books and movies and TV shows that painted Wyatt in that hero’s light might have started thinking that perhaps there had been a bad bet at a poker table. They’d be forgiven for thinking the worst thing Wyatt ever did in all his life was not saying excuse me for sneezing. People got blinded by heroes, they forgot they were _people_ too. Wyatt’s judgment was full of errors, but there was only the one that had him sending apology notes full of vague-sounding threats.

Wyatt had a _type_ when he was in a mood. He went for the men that didn’t say no; the ones that followed him around like ducklings. The sort of man that would do anything for him, the ones that would ride into hell for him if he asked. (That wasn’t what he did with them, and he probably hadn’t even been polite enough to ask.) 

Doc sighed but it felt like he’d been punched, like his own memory had reached out a long-long arm just to strangle him. He said, “Robert _Svane_. Wyatt’s _confidante_ in Purgatory.”

“Confidante?” Wynonna repeated.

“If you’ll excuse me,” he said. There was nothing at all he had to say about the matter that was anything he _ought_ to say. 

\--

Bobo couldn’t decide if it was more of a modern miracle that Henry had managed to keep track of his phone or that he had figured out how to use it. While he’d sent a _text_ instead of making a phone call and he hadn’t _responded_ when he got an answer, it still qualified as progress. If he kept going like he was, Henry might discover how to use a microwave by the end of the month and the sky was really the limit after you figured out how to radiate your food. 

Henry had the look of a man who needed a better coat, trying to act like the wind was capable of blowing straight through a full-grown man. His hands were shoved into his pockets while he walked, his head was ducked and all his hair that was usually pushed behind his ears was hanging around his face. But he stopped at the bottom of the stairs and eyed the house, “is this another one of your recently acquired properties?”

No. This was the Gardner house, presently free of it’s obnoxious inhabitants. Bobo worked very hard to maintain a well-defined presence in Purgatory. Everything went smoothly when people voluntarily moved out of his way for fear of the very sight of him. But the Gardners had been a stuck up set of bitches since before he went to hell, and it brought a fresh warm glow to his tired demon heart to think of how angry they’d be to come back to find their house defiled. “Very recently,” Bobo said.

“With, I assume, a very loose definition of the word _acquired_.” That didn’t stop Henry from smiling at him. He stomped up the stairs, knocking the snow off his boots as he went. “Well,” he said, “it is almost certain to have at least one bed.”

“As requested,” Bobo agreed. He’d already turned the locks on the door but Henry looked surprised when they just _opened_. The inside smelled like wood-polish, overpriced candles and expense. Just from standing by the door you could taste the money that had been spent to impress. 

Henry left his boots and his coat near the door. He had a nose like a bloodhound, paused in the center of a series of doorways and picking the one that lead him to liquor on the first guess. “Someone has left wood in the fireplace.” He was pulling the tops off the liquor, sniffing them one after another, “how kind of them to anticipate our need.”

That was just laziness on their part, the logs were made to look real. The fire was operated with a dial; Bobo started it while Henry finished his search for the alcohol he wanted to drink. The lights in the room had been dimmed for _ambiance_ and the fire was a swelling glow of heat but very little light. Rich people must have enjoyed drinking in the dark, feeling otherworldly and powerful. 

“Wynonna found a most curious thing in her barn today.”

Of course the Earp heir had chosen _this_ problem to solve in record time. She hadn’t spent weeks stumbling over an obvious answer how she was known to do. Maybe it was his fault for giving her the right clues or maybe it was hers for finally _remembering_. Bobo ran his finger across the mantle over the fire, dragging his fingertip past all the boring knick-knacks of status. If he exhausted a little energy to snap the bits of the ticking clock as he went, well nobody could prove it was him. “How fortunate for her.”

Henry had taken off his hat, it was propped up on the tallest of the bottles while he swirled a glass of liquid courage in his hand. He didn’t look much like the man he’d been a hundred and thirty years ago: not pale, not drunk, not _mean_. 

“And _what_ ,” Bobo asked. He ran out of mantle so he turned and dropped into one of the nice leather chairs by the fire, “did she find?”

“I recalled,” Henry said. He hadn’t set his glass down and he hadn’t moved from standing by the cart full of alcohol. “A most unfortunate habit of Wyatt’s. While history does shine very _favorably_ on him, and he did always _aim_ to be a good man, I happen to know from personal experience that he did not always quite meet that mark.”

The fire was licking against the fireplace, turned up as high as it could go, trying like hell to eat through those decorative fucking logs. No matter how hard it fought, it was never going to win. “I assume there is a point that you are making?”

“I did not _always_ know about Wyatt’s…” Not that wasn’t how Henry wanted to say whatever he was working around to saying. “That is to say, I was made aware of Wyatt’s methods of comforting himself when he found himself with a particular need that I was not available or willing to address.”

No. No, they were _not_ going to talk about that. “You’re killing the mood.”

“I had assumed that our original encounter was petty but _impersonal_ ,” Henry said.

Bobo pushed himself out of the chair. It shook in place, and the bits and bobs of metal on the shelves around him vibrated in place. Bobo had spent decades making men afraid of him, but Henry did nothing at all at the sound of the growl in his throat, but take another drink. 

Henry was _not_ afraid; he hadn’t ever been. 

“You wanted a goddamn bed,” Bobo growled. Every word was heating up like sparks on his back. That mark was hot as blisters and Henry didn’t care at all. He set his glass down as he shifted on his feet, leaning back into Bobo’s space with his very sorry eyes and his very determined frown. “I got you a goddamn bed. If you want to _talk_ , go back to the homestead.”

“We don’t need a bed if our aim is just _fucking_ , Robert.”

\--

Doc was just about tired of being shoved into furniture. He wasn’t _surprised_ , because any man with eyes could see where present circumstances were headed. Still, he just wished for a bit of a variety. A surprise in the otherwise predictable turn of events that had his chest smashed flat into a table and his arm twisted behind his back. 

The long, hot threat of violence against his back was so expected he couldn’t quite bring himself to be afraid (this time). Bobo was _snarling_ mad, holding him down, hissing something like, “I told you, you don’t get to call me that.”

No, that was a sore spot. Wyatt had a way of making those like nobody else. While a bad fuck wasn’t enough to account for all of Bobo’s secrets, it was enough to start with. Things like that, like being _used_ , they got under your skin and they never quite came out again. Whatever happened in the aftermath could be just as bad or worse, but it had _started_ there. 

More pressingly, the trouble with twisting a man’s arm behind his back was it was only half reliable at keeping him restrained. If you left the other arm out, well a man had _options_. Doc had liquor bottles and a decent enough aim to use it to free himself. He didn’t know if it struck the man in the head or the arm or neck, but it made him _yowl_. His grip slid off as he stumbled backward and Doc spun around without losing his weapon. 

“ _Wyatt_ was a dick,” he said.

“Wyatt’s dead!” Bobo shouted back at him.

“Well, I guess if he’s dead,” Doc hissed back, “then we should drink a toast in his honor.” He lifted the bottle as Bobo recoiled. All the light tips of the fur on his repulsive coat caught in the light and shivered. He was shaking like a rattlesnake, vibrating out a warning. “What do you think,” Doc asked as he unscrewed the lid, “ _I_ was always partial to his…”

Bobo didn’t snarl and he didn’t growl, that sound he made was just a shout. Just the sound you made when you couldn’t _stand it_ ; pushed past the point of pretense, Bobo just ran at him. He moved _fast_ and he hit like a herd of wild horses, throwing them both to the ground with no attempt to soften the landing. 

Doc lost his grip on the bottle, yelling, “oh shit!” because there wasn’t a single part of him that didn’t hit the ground with a resounding crack. From his skull to his ass, every inch was smarting with pain. Even his heels, as unprotected in nothing but socks as they were, seemed to balloon with fresh, hot pain. 

“You want to know?” Bobo shouted at him. His hands were wrapped around Doc’s throat, but they weren’t doing anything but framing the shape of it. His shoulders were hunched but he wasn’t _close_ ; his eyes were brilliantly bloody red and ringed in charcoal gray. “Would that make you happy? I’ll tell you all about how he loved you best. How he said _thank you_ when he was done? How he barely even looked at me before he left? What do you _want_ , Henry?”

Doc rolled them and Bobo didn’t fight at all. He landed on his back in the mountain of his stupid fur coat. His hands were still pushing at Doc’s throat, but there was no violence in it. You couldn’t box a man into a small space when he was _hurt_ like Bobo was. You had to leave all the exits open. “Wyatt was an _asshole_ ,” Doc said, “he didn’t love me best. He _loved_ his wife. He _loved_ his job. He _loved_ being feared everywhere he went. He didn’t _love_ me.”

Bobo’s hands were pushing at his chest, not holding onto his throat anymore. “No, you’re wrong. I heard how he talked about you.”

Doc sat back on his knees. “Fuck Wyatt.”

Bobo snorted, he was aiming for laughing but it just sounded like heartbreak. There was just no fight left in him, at that moment he was nothing but a man in an ugly coat. Doc leaned forward again, balancing his weight on one arm to keep enough space between them for a quick retreat (if necessary). He rested the other one along Bobo’s jaw, turning his face back toward him so he could kiss him. 

They weren’t going to get _anywhere_ going in circles. 

Bobo’s hands rested on his ribs like he’d forgotten how to touch him. Doc couldn’t go off apologizing for the actions of a dead man and he wouldn’t have even tried if he could. But he’d been on the bad end of one of Wyatt’s piss fits and he knew how it felt to love someone so much and have them break you into pieces. 

The kiss didn’t linger. Doc smiled and Bobo didn’t frown at him (that was a nice start). “A bed is nice,” he said, “but what I am currently in need of is a bath.”

“Of course you are,” Bobo mumbled. He even rolled his eyes. “I’m sure they’ve got something that would qualify in this house.”

Doc kissed him again, just a brief-and-promising sort of kiss, “maybe food as well.”

“Anything else?” Bobo asked, “flowers? Candy? Marvin Gaye?”

“Marvin who?”

Bobo kissed him that time, pulled him down and held him there.

\--

Ten minutes ago, Henry had been standing in the walk-in shower with his hand full of shower gel that smelled like lilies bitching about why he had to scrub days worth of filth off his skin. Stripped naked, half-covered in suds and standing underneath an oversized showerhead he had been a mouse in a rainstorm shaking its fist at God. 

But, here, leaning back into the relaxing curve of the oversized clawfoot tub with his feet securely stationed between Bobo’s thighs and the sides of the tub, he was nothing but long sighs. He’d brought his cigarillos along with him so he could smoke with his head hanging back and his arms resting on the sides of the tub.

The tub was deep enough to fit them both without spilling water over the side, and they’d filled it right up to the top with steaming hot water. Bobo didn’t get cold the way Henry must have, but there was still something like comfort to be found in sinking neck deep in warmth. He’d left Henry unattended and the water smelled like it had been filled with bath salts. It was like a liquid hug on his skin, as smooth as silk as he soaked. 

“I thought you’d be hairier,” he said because the silence was getting too long and too loud, “like your arms.”

Henry tipped his head to the side instead of lifting it up. His eyes were only open far enough to squint at him, and he didn’t seem to be surprised or offended by the words. No, he just said, “if my sparse body hair does offend, I am sure your modern world has a cream for it.” Henry looked at the cigarillo burning down for effect in his hand, “I miss opium.”

“Laudanum,” Bobo said.

“Morphine was good too,” Henry agreed. “At least there’s still whiskey. And tobacco.”

“And guns?”

“I had guns, what I did not have was proper ammunition. Although, these modern times are very _lawful_ and _polite_. Gambling is only acceptable in certain places. There’s not a single well-run bordello within twenty five miles of here. You cannot even shoot a man for stealing your horse.”

Bobo hummed, “depends on where you live, I think.”

“The lubrication is better,” Henry said.

It also had a greater variety and availability. Robert had much of a chance to work out how he felt about the options available during his life. (In fact, Bobo was not even sure what Wyatt had used.) “Is this observation from personal or professional experience?”

“Both,” Henry said, “although, despite what rumors may have circulated in those long ago days, I was not as _likely_ to be on the receiving end of the need for lubricant. That is,” he rolled his wrist with a dismissive flick of his hand, “a much more _recent_ development in my sexual preferences.”

“I’m flattered.” He lifted his arms out of the water to press them against the sides and pull himself up. The water shifted in a great wave, lapping over the side and spilling onto the pristine tile floors. “I didn’t realize I was one of the select few with the privilege.” 

Henry lifted one of his legs out of the milky water to rest it along the edge of the tub. His knee was peeking out of the water on the opposite side. His smile was all hedonism, not a single ounce of shame. “Somehow, I got the _impression_ that you might have. I seem to recall that I was not meant to _enjoy_ our first encounter.”

No, he hadn’t been. If he’d had any idea how hard it would be to hold John Henry Holliday down and make him _not_ enjoy something he might have just decided to slap him instead. “You offered.”

“You were gagging me with your dick,” Henry said. He didn’t even sound angry about it; as if he’d put that all away on a shelf and there was no more need to worry over it. “Besides, my aversion to being fucked was not because I did not find it to be a pleasurable experience when done correctly, it was because of the attitude of the men who attempted it.”

Bobo leaned forward so he could wrap his fingers around the tub and pull his body through the water. Henry was all but inviting him over, looking so smug and unbothered like he was. The silkiness of the bath had soaked into his skin, he was perfectly slippery everywhere Bobo touched him. All along the inside of his thighs, and down his chest, over his belly and to his thickening cock. 

Henry was talking himself into a hard on. His eyes were focused on Bobo’s shoulder, watching how it moved as he worked his hand up and down Henry’s dick. The heat of the water had made his face pink, and kept his hair from drying. His voice was a swallow, all low and easy, saying: “Wyatt never had the privilege.”

It wasn’t meant as an insult, or a sneer, or even a dare. It was an echo of the way he’d said, _leave that to me_ in the van. Of how he’d pulled Bobo up against his body in the bar. How he smiled just after he came, all long loose limbs and soft breath. 

Bobo could feel himself growling because there were no words to answer such a thing. At least not any that he knew how to use. Henry must have dropped his cigarillo in the spilled water because both his hands were pulling Bobo forward by the face to kiss him.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello tiny fandom friends. If any of you are social types and/or have a tumblr and an interest. I am [bewareofchris on tumblr](https://bewareofchris.tumblr.com). There is also a discord server where we're trying to round up people who enjoy talking about these morons.


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